Thursday, January 1, 2015

In my kitchen - January 2015

2015. It really does feel amazing to write that. Happily, I'm beginning the year with plenty of good food and (as this post will show!) rather a lot of chocolate. With my birthday and Christmas both falling in December, this In My Kitchen post benefits from food treats galore.

First up, my Christmas chocolate, beautifully selected by Mr Bite. I have chocolate for all occasions, with a 55% cocoa 'luxury dark chocolate' block, an 85% cocoa Marks & Spencer's dark chocolate block, and some milkier and sweeter dairy free chocolate caramels. They are all excellent.

To complement the chocolate, I have two new packets of tea - a mixed assortment and a gorgeously fragrant aniseed, fennel and liquorice pack.

I also have a card and carob block from Sandra, courtesy of her giveaway before Christmas. I adore carob and her card was a lovely extra in the package.

Going back to products bought in December (but still, in large part, in my kitchen now), I had great fun using my birthday Planet Organic voucher from Mr Bite.

Planet Organic purchases, part 1

Shown above are flavoured tofu and two raw vegan desserts from Inspiral: an amazingly fluffy raw chocolate mousse and a raw Christmas cake. The Christmas cake confirmed my growing belief that desserts I don't like in standard form, I rather love in raw vegan form. It had a coconut cream topping, plenty of dried fruit, and flavours of almond, vanilla and cherry.

Planet Organic purchases, part 2

Rounding out those items was a rather decadent selection of snacks, including several chocolate and/or carob products ranging from truffles to small bars to dark chocolate coated honeycomb. I also bought more coconut sugar and some black rice noodles, chosen for entertainment value. I put them to use last night with a satay sauce (pictured below), which we both enjoyed.

Satay flavoured black rice noodles

And just in case I didn't have enough chocolate (!), I also brought back two blocks from our northern trip, courtesy of the local Cumbrian supermarket, Booths. I thought it only right to support the local market, and tea flavoured dark chocolate seemed as good a way as any to do so.

It's perhaps just as well that around the chocolate and treats, I also have a large bag of kale, some cranberries, and plenty of apples.

Happy New Year all - and what is happening in your kitchen this month?!

45 comments:

Mmh, that looks like a lot of good food in your kitchen right now. As a fellow chocolate addict I can attest there really never is too much of it. And this: "I thought it only right to support the local market" could have totally been me justifying the purchase of another bar, too. Seeing as it's the first of the month I can't tell what's going to happen in my kitchen yet. However, there will be a concerted effort of using up what's already in my pantry before buying new items.

Goodness that IS a lot of chocolate! (And that's coming from me! :)) They all sound fabulous though, especially the tea flavoured ones. And speaking of tea, how cute is the artwork on that box of mixed teas! Happy New Year and a belated happy birthday to you as well! :)

That is an amazing amount of chocolate - we are going into heatwave mode when we need to cut down on the amount of chocolate around the house - but I would fancy some chocolate covered honeycomb and some of that tea flavoured chocolate. I love the tea assorted pack packaging. I am jealous of you being able to buy fresh cranberries - and amused that they feel they need to suggest how to use them on the packet!

Kari, that was a real blast from the past seeing your stock of carob! Back in the day we were all substituting carob for chocolate. Now we see plenty of chocolate in the health food stores along with the carob products. A much more balanced approach, I'd say! Would so love to visit Cumbria (and Booth's); it's where my mother's family is from. Yesterday I posted my very first In My Kitchen.

Oh, how lovely that your mother is from that area :-) I hope you visit one day as it's a beautiful area. I grew up with carob being the 'health treat' too - I think that's where I got my taste for it, but as this post highlights, I have a chocolate taste as well!

Happy New Year, you have so much chocolate in your kitchen this month! Hope you're making some beautiful dishes with it all ;) But you must taste before hand to make sure it's good enough, right! See you next month at IMK

Happy New Year, Kari!! And happy belated birthday! You are one of my oldest blog friends, and I truly cherish our friendship! I can't wait to see what the new year has in store for you and Mr. Bite ;).So many delicious treats! I always get excited when you share your favorites as I discover foods I never even knew existed. I've had green tea flavored chocolate (Koreans love anything green tea..green tea ice cream, donuts, croissant, latte...) but never anything else. Now I'm curious as to what souchong tea tastes like!

well you can never have too much chocolate in the cupboard especially if it is very dark and/or full of nuts or liqueur cherries:) A friend came back from Sicily with that amazing green lemon chocolate they have there. i thought the colour and the flavour were out of this world. have a great 2015.

Hi Kari, very nice post. Could you please help me? Could you tell me what the ingredients are in that fantastic looking Mark and Spencer Aniseed Fennel and Licorice tea? I can't find the ingredients anywhere online, I'd love to order it but there are things my husband can't have because of his lupus and acid reflux like citric acid and oranges. Thank you. and thanks for your wonderful blog.Chris

Of course! I'd be very happy to help. I have finished this pack and don't have any at the moment, but am delighted to have an excuse to buy another one - and perhaps I can just take a photo of the ingredients for you next time I'm in an M&S. I'll send it through to you :)

I genuinely appreciate all comments and the time taken to post them. Occasionally, I may need to restrict commenting to registered users in order to halt large volumes of spam. If that happens, I will lift the restriction within a week.

Want other ways to interact? Bite-sized thoughts is on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/bitesizedthoughts) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/bitesizethought).